For a while Friday night, Plymouth’s varsity boys basketball team looked in control against Canton.

It was a 6-0 lead for the host Wildcats in the second half of an emotion-packed Canton-Plymouth twinbill (the girls teams played the night’s first contest.)

Plymouth enjoyed a 15-7 advantage with 1:15 to go in the first, following a triple by Julian LeDoux. But after a tip-in at the buzzer by Canton’s Obi Okoli the lead was down to six (15-9).

And then, Logan Ryan took over. By the time he was done hammering home dunks of the roundhouse and two-handed variety, the Chiefs were in the midst of a 15-0 run. Plymouth never recovered, falling 51-40.

The division champion Chiefs improved to 16-0 overall and 10-0 in the KLAA South, the first undefeated division record in school history.

Special stretch

“Plymouth came out like gangbusters and, as a staff, we had a feeling that might happen,” Canton head coach Jimmy Reddy said. “They’re talented, they’re a good team and they were ready to play.

“We sustained that first punch and we had a really good second quarter there. There were a couple plays in the run that I haven’t seen before. The steals and the dunks, it was one of the best runs I’ve seen as a head coach.”

Three of the dunks were by Ryan (19 points, seven rebounds), who transformed a 19-14 deficit into a 25-19 edge over a 2:15 span.

“I think it conveniently happened,” Ryan said. “We were in a slump and that’s a good way to bring a team out of a slump — get a blocked shot or a dunk. The bench got into it after that and that was kind of the turnaround for the game.”

From the Plymouth perspective, the way the contest did a 180 was a shocker.

“We turned the ball over like that and you let the other team get momentum,” Wildcats senior guard Brent Davis said. “A few dunks here and there, it could have gone either way.

“Once they got that momentum, they kind of shocked us a little bit. We’re a young team. ... We got a lot of sophomores on the team, so this is really their second big Park game, so they don’t really know how to react when there’s a momentum change.”

Davis scored six of his team-leading 14 points in the first quarter, but was blanked during the second by Canton sophomore guard Colin Troup.

“I think the guy that changed the game for us defensively with Davis was Colin Troup,” Reddy said. “I told him he did a heck of a job. Davis had a tough time scoring on Colin tonight.”

Under the radar

According to Plymouth head coach Mike Soukup, whose team takes a 7-9 record (5-5 in the KLAA South) into the conference tournament, the way Ryan seized control of the game was something the Wildcats could not recover from.

“He made some plays, we just weren’t able to respond,” Soukup said.

Soukup noted two early fouls called against senior guard Pete Carravallah as a key factor in how Plymouth got into trouble during the second quarter (which ended with the Chiefs up 29-21). “(Carravallah) does so many things that go under the radar for us.”

The coach added that scrappy senior guard Pete Brown (13 points) also was strong for the Wildcats.